Page 114 of Waking Olivia

By the timewe reach the apartment, foreplay is completely unnecessary and even unwanted. He pushes my back against the wall just inside the door, his mouth landing on mine as he slides up my dress, his hands skimming my thighs.

“OhGod,” he groans when his fingers slip between my legs.

I reach for his belt and undo it as we move toward the table. I’m not sure which of us is leading the other. There will be time for something slow and measured later, but that’s not what either of us wants right now. He turns me so that I’m face down, and I remain there, breathless as I listen to the sound of his zipper sliding, feel him push against me and then into me with a groan of relief. He holds my hips in place, his thrusts quick and sharp, murmuring my name as he bends over to kiss the back of my neck. My back is damp, soaking through the dress and I don’t care as he moves faster, as his words grow incoherent.

“Grab the table,” he grunts, and then he pushes so hard that it feels as if my clinging hands are all that separate me from a long, hard fall. One more push, the table sliding across the floor, and I come.

He lets go with a hoarse cry, and when he’s finally spent he lies over me, his front pressed against my back, his mouth buried in my neck. “I love you,” he whispers. “God I love you so much.”

I know that he does. And I know I love him so fiercely that words are inadequate. So fiercely that it will destroy me if he ever changes his mind.

Over break, Will begins taking groups out, mostly tourists in town for the holidays, skiers looking for a diversion though I can’t imagine wanting to climb when it’s so cold. But he comes home with a light in his eyes he never had when we first met. I attempt to cook, because it shouldn’t fall entirely on him, and it’s awful but he digs in anyway, asking for seconds. We go running, and when he tries to correct my turnover rate I bark, “You’re not my coach anymore!”. After a fair amount of bickering we decide that I will do what he asks if he promises to make it worth my while when we get home—an agreement that works out satisfactorily for us both.

He’s happy.

I’m happy.

And then I talk to the police.

79

Olivia

It didn’t takethem long to figure out how my father got Sean’s address. There was no endorsement offer from a Japanese shoe company. It was my father, using a fake email address, and I was an idiot to fall for it. They tell me he’s being extradited to Kansas to stand trial for the murders of my brother and my mom. They also tell me that my years of not remembering probably saved my life because he’d have shown up a lot sooner otherwise.

And then they mention something in passing that leaves my stomach sinking like a heavy weight: my father’s nickname was Finn.

It’s the part of the conversation I don’t want to tell Will later, but I do, and he sees in my face all the things I’m thinking. “It doesn’t mean anything, Liv,” he says immediately. “Lots of people have that nickname.”

Except I’ve had time, too much time, to think this through. To look for and find all the staggering similarities between my father and myself.

“That nickname’s not the only thing we have in common,” I reply, staring at my hands, wondering what more they might be capable of.

Will’s gaze pins me, and his voice is angry. “There’s a world of difference between what you’ve done and what he’s done. Don’t you dare make that comparison.”

I want to believe him.

But then I think of the look on Matthew’s face when I agreed to dig that hole.

Second semester begins. Will climbs. Dorothy plans a wedding. I begin working with ECU’s new female coach. She’s good, but not as good as Will, who I run with on weekends now and actually listen to without demanding an incentive.

And we are happy, very happy, but all the while there is something festering—something I don’t share with Will. The similarities between my father and me are sort of like a monster under the bed: I’m so scared of what I might find that I can’t bring myself to look.

Will comes to my first meet that winter. He makes no secret of the fact that he’s there for me, and it becomes pretty obvious to everyone who hadn’t already figured it out why Will left his job. But people love Will, and inexplicably seem to like me, so it’s not a big deal to most of the team. There are a few assholes, naturally, and I really don’t care. Betsy and her peers can be snide about it all they want: I’m the only one of us who’s taking first place consistently, and I’m the only one of us going home with Will. That last bit makes it easy not to care whatanyonethinks.

It’s almost perfect, aside from this: I’m having nightmares again. And in these, my father is longer the villain. I am.

I dream that I’m arriving somewhere—the farm, our apartment, the track—like it’s any other day. And then I suddenlyremember, as if it’s something I could ever forget, that Will is dead. The realization tears through my chest, cracking it wide open, and when the pain hits I remember something else: I’m the one who did it. In some moment of blindness, like the one that happened with Mark Bell, I attacked him and I can never bring him back.

I wake sobbing, with Will beside me, trying to calm me down. When he asks, I lie and say it was about my father. I can’t imagine telling him the truth: the awful thing is no longer something outside of me.

It’s inside me, waiting to strike.

By March, Colorado’s year-round sunlight grows warm instead of merely bright, and the snow begins to melt. Will is always doing small things, things I suspect he doesn’t think anything of—he stuffs newspaper in my wet running shoes to help them dry faster. He makes coffee even on mornings he doesn’t have time to drink it. Every time he passes Starbucks he stops to get me a pumpkin scone. These are small things, meaningless things, but what they tell me is not: I matter to him, always, and even if I’m being evil or cool or dismissive, he’s not going anywhere.

He isn’t going anywhere, but I might be. Because the nightmares are more frequent now, and each time I wake from one I tell myself I should leave. That I should go somewhere Will could never find me in order to keep him safe. Sometimes the only way I can ease my anxiety and go back to sleep is byswearingto myself I will go. Once I even begin to pack, but then daylight comes and I look at Will sleeping there and can’t bring myself to do it.

It changes things between us. Will begins to discuss the time after I graduate, though it’s over a year away. He talks about us moving to Seattle, where I can train for long distance and he can lead bigger climbs, and I dismiss it. He references marriage, and kids, and I say nothing, hating the small glint of hurt in his eyes each time I fail to respond. But how can I possibly discuss the future, discuss marriage or—God forbid—kids, when I have no idea what this is inside me and what harm it’s capable of?

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